Redskins-Rams Winners & Losers

Winners

Ryan Torain – In his first action of the season, he was really impressive, running guys over, juking others and showing a burst I forgot he had. Picked up 135 yards on 7.1/carry and found paydirt. Will be interesting to see if he starts after the bye.

Brian Orakpo — Was on Sam Bradford all day. Recorded 2.5 sacks, caused a false start and kind of forced the fumble that Barry Cofield recovered.

Losers

Rex Grossman — Played so bad it wouldn’t surprise me if he’s benched over the bye. And, yes, I realize they’re 3-1 and John Beck is John Beck.

Kyle Shanahan — Refuses to run the ball when he really should.

Tim Hightower — Averaged three yards/carry. Dropped two passes. Seemingly lost his job to Torain.

Brandon Banks — Got nothing on returns. Dropped (and recovered) a punt. Let another bounce at the 22; it was almost downed inside the 5.

Jammal Brown — False started on 4th-and-4, which was unfortunate.

Danny Smith — You know anytime anything goes wrong on special teams we’re blaming Smith. Today it was not one but too unnecessary roughness calls on punt return coverage. The first, on Perry Riley, was questionable, but the second, on Niles Paul, was not.

Leonard Hankerson — Where the hell is Leonard Hankerson?

Rams fans — We have it pretty bad, but that team is on another level.

Medium

Mike Shanahan — His team won and is somehow 3-1 at the bye, which is great, but how do you act like a 14-point first-half lead is insurmountable? They had the ball on their 20 with timeouts and almost two minutes left, yet they went into clock-killing mode. It almost came back to bite ‘em.

Santana Moss — Scored a pretty touchdown. Also dropped a pass that turned into an INT.

It was pretty empty at kickoff, then filled up for the most part by half then emptied midway through the 4th quarter. I will say this though, the place was loud. I’ve never been in a dome before though so maybe thats normal. But it got really loud on third downs.

Anyone who complains about anything at 3-1 thru four games. You’re in first place, with the tie-breaker, a quarter way through the season. There’s been more criticism after this WIN than last year’s loss @STL…

Banks : he’s not about to break one, ever. Returning punts/kicks is difficult but it’s you’re only job; get north and south.

Winners :

Defensive front : excellent job all day long. i think we forget how tough a defensive assignment healthy SJax is for four quarters. Also, the pass rush is legit.

Rocky : best game as a Skin ever?

Running game : everyone please stay healthy – from o-line to Helu/Torain/Hightower – because you’re a bitch to for defenses to gameplan against.

Hightower recovered a fumble and made a tackle to prevent a pick six. That’s enough te elevate him to medium. Also, he never has a hole to run through. Let him come in after the other guys soften up the d line. – signed, guy with Hightower on his fantasy team.

Tim Ryan was beyond awful. The master of football cliches and re-stating what just happened.

Hightower should have been a loser purely based on that 4th quarter drop on 3rd down which would have resulted in a 1st down during a period of the game where we really needed some offensive momentum. Maybe its just me, but it seems like Helu and Torain are able to find holes but Hightower can’t.

Rocky’s play left me speechless. Am I supposed to expect more of him now?

Also, the two personal fouls on punt returns were tough to accept. They are both bang-bang and the league offers the option to fair catch to avoid decapitation, use it. I don’t fault anyone in the burgundy and gold for those.

As for the rest, I’m happy with the win/record/bye week. Hope lil’ Shanny starts calling plays for the Offense that reflect our strengths and weaknesses. Rex is a serviceable QB for this team this year, let’s keep him in his comfort zone, i.e. handing the ball off to our 3 RBs.

A little harsh on Brown, considering I don’t know if I heard Chris Long’s name mentioned once during the game. Thought it was his best game.

Tim Ryan wouldn’t stop yapping about the Rams penalties even though the Redskins had more penalties and a lot more penalty yards. How does he have a job? He’s a an extemely dumbed down version of John Madden, if that’s possible.